Vaccines: Article Analysis

“According to our records, you are delinquent on your vaccinations,” the dreaded sentence that one doesn 't want to hear when at the doctors. Vaccinations are a very controversial topic. Some people will argue that vaccines do not lead to immunization, vaccines are studied in the wrong ways, or that diseases were already on their way out prior to the implementation of the vaccine. Nowadays there is talk on how effective these vaccines are and how they may contribute to more problems than they solve. The author of this article believes that vaccines are detrimental to society; however I believe that his article is ineffective at proving his point because it is littered with unsupported facts and logical fallacies.
A vaccine is defined as “a …show more content…
Vaccines have been proven to help with the prevention of disease. The author believes that since the tests on vaccines were not done in a certain way, they can be deemed incredible. The author believes that if scientists are not testing vaccines for diseases, with both a placebo group and an experimental group, then it is not a credible experiment. The author then states, “It would be unethical to not give a child a vaccine because if that child dies of something that could be prevented, they don 't want to be responsible. But if someone dies in their trials from taking anti-depressants, it must be ok.” 3(Perkins) This is a false analogy. There is a difference between knowingly not giving a child the correct precautionary measures and someone dying in a trial. They are two different scenarios so Perkins cannot directly compare them. It is true that it would be unethical to let a child die from a disease in a trial when scientists know that they could have prevented it. It is also unethical to let a human die in a trial of a new drug, but they are not comparable because one was intentional and the other accidental. The author is trying to use ethos and pathos to make you question the motives and the testing of vaccines. Perkins is also trying to make readers feel sympathy for those who suffer from vaccination testing, and use that sympathy to arise anger towards corporations. The …show more content…
Polio ran rampant through countries around the world and was finally slowed to a stop when a scientist by the name of Jonas Salk came up with a vaccine. The author stated that “The highest incidence of polio came during the depression.” 3(Perkins) The author then went on to state, “Polio was massively decreasing prior to any vaccine.” 3(Perkins) The author is using logos to help prove his point. Perkins provided a graph that started at a low point in 1941, showed a spike in the early 1950’s, and showed polio decreasing in 1953. It was previously stated that polio ran rampant during the depression, but while looking at the graph it seems that the increased incidence of polio began at the end of the depression, which lasted from 1929-1941. This means that his prior claim was not even supported by his given data. “In 1952 the US saw a record 57,628 cases.”2 The graph provided appears to show a major drop in polio cases after 1952, but this is not the case if you look at it in perspective of the whole graph. There was one a major outbreak in 1952 but then polio returned to the normal levels of about 10,000-15,000 cases per year. This does not mean that polio was on its way out; it just shows that the outbreak was rebounding. It was not until 1955 when the vaccine was released that this number dropped to under 5,000 or about half of the original value and stayed below that number. Therefore since the facts